Z600 not posting PCIe Card that previously worked

[DGroves]

the dell h310 card works well in the zxxx systems it uses the same "LSI Mustang" chipset  found on the z820 motherboard

two things you need to be aware with the H310

1.  (optional) either replace the heatsink  (Required) ADD A FAN TO THE HEATSINK, the card will overheat and fail in the z600 as the card when in a dell, gets direct airflow due to the case design, not so when placed in a z600

2. the h310 card was available in two bios formats Server/Workstation either bios is fine, but when wanting to update the bios pay attention to the cards prompts on the z600 post, as it will say either workstation or server allowing you to id the nessary firmware update you require

[Peter_Geary]

The H310 sounds like a solid option then, does it have a 3/4pin fan header on the card or will I need to fashion something together myself, I gather that it must be a well known mod to do to the card seeing as it overheats

[DGroves]

you might have to di the  "ic2" pins mod (cover 2 pins on the pcie edge) however i did not have to do this on my xw8600 or my z820, but did have to on my z800 (i used nail polish) i simply masked the 3 edges

then applied the polish to pins 5 and 6 on the top side only. now i can move the card between all systems if desired

https://yannickdekoeijer.blogspot.com/2012/04/modding-dell-perc-6-sas-raidcontroller.html

look at post# 5 showing a blue heatsink/fan on a perc 310 card

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/26-home-theater-computers/1489569-dell-perc-h310-h200.html

in my case i bought a 100x60mm  aluminum sink that was 15mm high and a 2mm copper shim

i removed the dell sink and heatsink mounting clips, i then used thermal expoxy to attach the 2mm shim onto the LSI controller chip (nessary so the large aluminum sink clears LSI card componits)

verified clearence ok with only one 2mm shim, (but you can use 2 shims or buy a 4mm shim if nessary)

then epoxied the aluminum sink onto the copper shim,  in my z820 i have the nessary airflow where a fan is not needed

but a z600 will still need a fan attached (use a 40x20mm chipset PWM fan)

last i stuck with their firmware instead of installing the LSI firmware, as the custom dell firmware has JBOD, and Raid support and while the raid 5 is slow it is there if you need it (along with raid 0/1)

[Peter_Geary]

Woah, thanks for the write up, much appreciated, it'll certainly help out with installation if I get the h310, I'm stuck between the LSI 9212 based cards (I can get one for £14) and the more expensive and slightly more time intensive Dell H310, how much approximately will it cost to do the mods to the Dell H310? I'm usually one to tinker and modify things but doing that to a HBA card makes me worry that I may put my whole system out of action, something i can't afford to do right now, as someone new to HBA/Raid/SATA port add in cards which would you recommend I go with? The Dell H310 is about £25-£35 here in the UK and I'd rather not go beyond that right now, and then I'd need to buy the cables which appear to cost about £20 each for SAS to 4x SATA and I find that rather steep when it clearly doesn't cost that much to produce

[DGroves]

the time to do the heatsink mod is about 10min and then 4-6 hour waiting for the thermal epoxy to cure

upgraded Heatsink: 100x60x10mm

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1pcs-100x60x10mm-Aluminum-Heat-Sink-LED-power-IC-Transistor-DC-Convertidor-...

copper shim,  (to raise heatsink up clearing parts on circuit board)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/10pcs-20mmx20mmx0-8mm-Thick-Heatsink-Copper-Shim-Thermal-Pads-for-Laptop-GP...

thermal epoxy (use to mount copper shim to LSI chip, to main heatsink)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Thermal-Conductive-Epoxy-Electrically-Insulating-Adhesive-Compound-2153-2-5...

H310 cooling fans for new heatsink: (you want 2 fans) 60x60x10mm

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Sunon-KDE1206PFV2-60x60x10mm-MagLev-Fan-3Pin/331060341962?epid=1103919486&h...

the above parts will allow you to have a H310 with forced air cooling that still fits in a single pci-e slot!!!

if you can waste a slot, simply buy a 3 pin fan for the existing heatsink, (40x40x20mm)  and make sure you buy a quality fan!! cheap fans are not going to work well in this application

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or buy a LSI based PCI-E 2.0 SATA 6GBps card

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Fujitsu-D2607-SAS-SATA-RAID-SAS-controller-LSI-9210-9211-9240-9220-M1015/12...

[Peter_Geary]

Thanks for providing all the details required to do the mod, despite this I've decided that for now I'm going to try and see how I go with the much older 16 Port LSI00137 card, this is as much a cost influenced option as it is a research/discovery one, if I get it to work then I can write up how and that then offers people more information about the Z600 as well as that specific LSI card, if I doesn't work or I have complications then I can write up about that to, however now that I know about the H310 it's possible I'll use it in the future, I'm all about helping the wider community and offering people insight into various options they can utilise, many thanks for your help and I'll update this post with my results once my LSI card arrives

[Peter_Geary]

Update (Mon 23rd April 2018): The RAID card that I purchased arrived today, it is exactly what I was expecting (A LSI00137 model), great condition for something that cost me £27 all in, I now await the arrival of my SAS Mini to SATA cables before I can test out the card and see if it'll work in my Z600, I will post another update once they do and then provide a detailed conclusion to my quest on finding a suitable RAID/SATA add in PCIe Card for my Z600 running Windows 10 Pro

[Peter_Geary]

Update (Fri 4th May 2018): The SAS8087 cables arrived and they have been installed into my Z600 with the LSI 84016E (LSI00137) Raid Card, the card was detected immediately, it was running newer firmware, as it was my first time using a raid card I have initially set it up by wiping my drives and adding each one as it's own drive group and then separate virtual drive, I will update this thread again in a few days time once I've flashed newer firmware to the card to hopefully enable 'IT' mode, it appears to supported by the hardware and newest firmware so if the official documents are correct then it will work like a HBA card, for a card that's chipset is almost 20 years old it's got reasonably good support

[DGroves · Accepted solution]

you can not replace the Raid firmware on this card with "IT" firmware,  furthermore the card  does not support JBOD as a configurable option this card (LSI 84016E ) is RAID ONLY  and  only works in Raid modes it will never become a HBA card

 i have used this model  and i am aware of it's  specs/abilitys the best you might do is to make each drive attached a raid 0 array  which will give you a  hacked JBOD that is using the LSI boot code on each drive instead of letting the motherboard chipset control the drive (which is what a true jbod controller allows)

you decided on the  LSI 84016E for some reasion,  i hope the card works out for you and if not then consider the cards i recomended

[Peter_Geary]

After much testing and tweaking I can confirm that the LSI 84016E RAID card does not and cannot support any form of JBOD or IT Mode, it is purely a raid card, Based on recommendations made here and other places on the internet it is a better option to purchase a LSI 9211-8i card, use it in the "IT" Mode and then if you need more than 8 drives attached then to use a SAS expander board, not only is it more cost effective but it's also going to be faster, run cooler, and most importantly, have better support within the tech community due to how common it is, the LSI 84016E however isn't a bad choice if all you need is a large raid array of many drives